Need Input on Resetting of My Keeper League

Our 10 team Full PPR League is doing a complete reset after 18 years entering 2018. Our previous keeper system was flawed with too many keepers (5 per team) and the cost for keeping a player from year to year which I won't explain.

Anyways, we are most likely going to go back to keepers but only with two per team. For those of you that play keeper leagues, what have you found successful? Restrictions on how many years players can be kept? What is the cost for keeping a player year to year? What round in each draft do players start becoming keeper eligible?

Side note, 10 teams, start 2RB, 3 WR, 1 TE, 2 Flex, is 1/2 ppr the way to go away from full PPR?

Any info would be appreciated. Everything in our league is voted on so it's gonna be a busy offseason for this co-commissioner.

Free agents carry a 10th round pick (though I think if the league continued, I would have wanted to change this like to a 6th or 7th round draft pick)...

To keep a player, you must draft them three rounds earlier... So if you draft a player this year in the 14th round, it will be like this:

2018: 14th2019: 11th2020: 8th2021: 5th2022: 2nd2023: Back into the pool

Worked out well because the most you would have a player would be for five years...

If a drafted player is dropped during the regular season and then picked up, it still retains the drafted value...

Also, you can't keep two players in the same round unless you acquire an additional pick... If you can't, one has to be designated a round earlier as a keeper... So if you pickup two players and they pan out, you can keep one as a 7th round and one as a 6th round in the next year's draft...

We were allowed to keep as many as we wanted, though most years people kept anywhere from 2-3 players... One year one guy kept 7 RBs, but only a couple panned out...

Interesting. Our previous version of keepers was 1 lottery keeper (picked in 1st 4 rounds at some point) & 4 nonlottery keepers (5th round and beyond or FA). Players could be kept for as long as you wanted. This resulted in a few stacked teams which was fine because they ran their team well, but the Draft sucked. Last year based on Yahoo Rankings, there was only 6 of the top 35 non QB's available.

Is 1/2 point per catch the way to go from full PPR in you guys opinion?

In one of my keeper leagues, we have an auction draft. I think this league works way better than the other keeper league that I'm in. We have a $200 cap for our roster. We are allowed to keep $60 worth of players where no player is off limits. So if you draft Brown at $53, you can keep him, but you only have $7 to spend on the rest of your guys... or you can just go into the draft with $147. For players kept, their value increases based on where he finished in his position. A player who finishes in the top 3, his keeper cost goes up $20, top 7, is $15, top 12 $10, everyone else is $5. So, when I paid $3 to buy David Johnson 3 years ago, I kept him for $3 after his rookie season. After the 2016 season, he cost me $23 to keep. This year, he'll cost me $28 to keep. Had he finished top 7, he'd have cost me $38 to keep. So... even if you find a stud cheap, you'll probably only keep him for 2-3 more seasons.

Now, I did get lucky with that pick too. I drafted Bell that year (2015), for $52. I kept him and Johnson for $55. Worked out great in 2016, but I had to let one of them go. So in the end, I did win the championship 2 years in a row, but obviously things didn't go well this year.

It works that same with free agency. You have to bid on all players with a $100 cap (for the season). So, if you pick up a guy for $14, that's his keeper salary. If you keep him at $14, just like drafted players, his value the following year goes up by the same increments.. top 3, 7, and 12. That way, nobody gets a free ride by picking up a guy off waivers who turns into a stud.

The guys who really benefit from this system is when you draft a bunch of guys cheap and they all finish outside the top 12... but even still, you need to be really really lucky. One guy tried that approach and it didn't work. He wasted 3 drafts and missed the playoffs all 3 years. When he finally started paying up, he started winning, and was only keeping 2 or 3 guys.

Something else to add... we can trade players for draft money. Because auction drafts don't really allow for much advantage to people who have a bad season the following year (whereas in other keeper leagues you'll pick in the top of the draft), you can get a little boost by trading players. So in a down year, like I had this year, I was able to trade both Kelce and Fitzgerald for $5 of draft money each. So in next years draft, I'll have an extra $10 available to me after my keepers. Note, that $10 is draft money only and can not be used for keepers. We do not have a set amount on how much draft money you can trade, people are going to do that on their own because no one wants to go into a draft with a big disadvantage.

This year, someone did pay $25 for Todd Gurley because he figured his keepers would be really cheap and wouldn't spend the full $60 on them. I believe he's going to keep Kamara for $15 and Juju for $7. He'll still go into the draft with $151.

We keep it really easy and simple. 2 keepers for a 3 year max period. For instance; if you draft Gurley this year, you have to trade him by the end of your 3rd year with him or he goes back into the pool.

There is no price for a keeper and you have to keep 2 players. Drafting starts what I will call round 1, but because there are 2 keepers per team you basically are starting from round 3. Caveat to our drafting system is it goes 1-12, 1-12, 1-12 like the nfl draft and gives an advantage to those teams who didnt make the playoffs the previous year.

In our losers (toilet) bracket we play for draft picks each year so that the league stays somewhat competitive the whole year.

Tried not to get into real specifics but thats our template of a league

Sounds like a perfect time to change over to an auction draft. In my league we have a set number of contracts per team that you can assign a player to multiple years (up to 4 years) at the salary you win the player for. Decided at the time of draft, not end of year. Once you contract a player, you don't get those contract years back (even if you drop the player before it's over) unless you trade the player and his contract years away or until the contract is over.

We switched over to auction about 10+ years ago and it really made FF more interesting and fun overall for me. Trading also is very different as well since teams have to adhere to salary caps. We have never had anyone question an "iffy" trade in that whole time.

Bump for more ideas about how to do 2 man keeper with 3 year restriction on players on one team.

Any more thoughts?

Most of my leagues are "catch & release" dynasty leagues where each year we keep X number (some are 8, some are 16) of players for 3 year contracts. MFL allows you to track this easily, but idk if other sites do.

When players are traded to or dropped/picked up by another team their contracts renew to 3. At the end of their 3 years you must trade the player or drop them prior to our new league year (roughly July or so).

I like the 3 year limits because it encourages trading and keeps any one team from eventually dominating a league which happens a lot in "true" dynasty leagues.

“When I played pro football, I never set out to hurt anyone deliberately - unless it was, you know, important, like a league game or something” ~ D. Butkus

Bump for more ideas about how to do 2 man keeper with 3 year restriction on players on one team.

Any more thoughts?

If you're keeping only 2 players, you won't need a 3-year restriction. I don't think anyone would keep 1 player for more than 3 years anyway. Odds are that everyone will have at least 3 or 4 quality players worth keeping every year and you're going to error on the side of youth more times than not.

If you're keeping only 2 players, you won't need a 3-year restriction. I don't think anyone would keep 1 player for more than 3 years anyway. Odds are that everyone will have at least 3 or 4 quality players worth keeping every year and you're going to error on the side of youth more times than not.

Not true. Johnson, Elliot, Bell, Brown, (maybe a few others) would be kept every year, and give teams a tremendous long term advantage.